You think you know bittergate, but ...

According to the oft-wrong punditocracy, bittergate still has legs. If that's true, one thing you can do -- to introduce a smidgen of sanity into the conversation -- is to copy the actual context (offered below) and paste it into an email. "Taken out of context" is often the last refuge of political scoundrels, but here I do not think so. When you read what Obama was trying to explain -- his desire to persuade people who have been screwed again and again that they now could trust the government to help them -- you can see that his point was a pretty reasonable one. I'll have a little more to say about this, but it won't be as important as what Obama actually said.

OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

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11 Comments

On Friday, your show was the first I heard of this flap. You read the quote, and I was very concerned about it. But you were calm. You said you understood what he meant, but it would take off in a really bad direction. Okay. I thought, well, Colin gets it. It should be okay.

I wasn't so convinced, as I made sure to tune in to Chris Matthews to see if the story had legs. The story wasn't mentioned. Phew. After all, it was Friday. Where could the story go over the weekend? Laid to rest?

Yet, it took off. At epic proportions, IMO, for a weekend news story. Yes, Colin, context is important in all of this. The problem is that no one WANTS context. They won't listen to it nor read it w/understanding (in email as you suggest). It's not fun when it diffuses the situation.

A friend emailed me about this mess last night. She gave me a theory about why the MSM is all over this. First, she said that they want Hillary to win this thing so that they can watch the dems self-destruct. I disagree.

Her other argument makes more sense. The pundits want to see Obama go down in order to drag this thing out. I don't completely agree, but I get it.

I don't think MSM gives a sh*t who wins this thing. They LOVE the controversy. It's a ratings grabber. You've said it on the air. Chris Matthews has said it on the air. I'm sure others have as well.

But WTF? Does the news cycle end when Obama or Billary gets the nom? Nothing left for the pundits to spin? I think not. Because then the gloves are off. McCain will actually have to DO SOMETHING to win this thing. I can only imagine the mighty heaping democratic surrogates will send to the 100-year war guy. Bring it on!

Wouldn't you have to be insane if you were not miserable let alone b-----? What about what they have done in our name to the Iraqi people. We did not have the right to touch a hair on the head of a single Iraqi child. I was there the whole time while they stole not just the election but the whole country from middle class Americans. I don't even recognize the city I grew up in.

Sometimes he says what he thinks, which is what alot of people think but are afraid to say. Which is why he may be the first politician that may be too honest for his own good. I mean Hillary spews one lie after another and barley gets called on it. But I guess that is the price you pay for trying to talk to your audience like adults.

Watchin' the polls roll in . .
Must be really embarrassing for all those "in-touch-with-America" pundits to see that all this bluster about bitter did nothing, NOTHING, to change the Pennsylvania polls. If anything, OBH got a slight rise in the Gallup daily. Ho, ho, ho.
oldswede

Here's what John Stewart had to say about the nonsense on Monday night (after showing several talking heads using the word Elitist):

"Doesn't elite mean good? is that not something we're looking for in a president any more? Y'know what, candidates? I know that elite isn't a bad word in politics..... but the job you're applying for, if you do a good job, they might carve your head into a mountain! if you don't actually think you're better than us, then what the f*** are you doing? ... In fact not only do I want an ELITE president, I want someone who's embarrassingly superior to me, somebody who speaks 16 languages, and sleeps 2 hours a night, hanging upside down in a chamber they themselves designed .... "

I think this thing does have legs because, even though he did say it in the broader context of the distrust of government, there is nothing contextual that can explain away the comment that "So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

In other words, no matter what he said in the speech about distrust of government, he still said that the result was bitter people who cling to guns or religion. It was an affirmative statement. The question isn't the context, but whether he believes that people like their religion of their guns because they are bitter.

This hurst BHO because it is all part of a narrative that is telling a story to the American people and he can't totally deny the sentiment because he still has to win over a party that believes that sentiment. This is bad for him - Michael Dukakis 40 state loss bad.

Huh? I read this, re-read it, and came to this conclusion. He isn't a great speaker, is he? Does he need a speech written by Ted Sorenson to tell people what they want to hear? I expect better from the man who wants to be my president. We hear countless jokes about Bush's poor speaking manner. Obama is the same. Why aren't we seeing the same reaction from comedians making fun of his speeches? Or, it could be a political strategy in which he is obtuse so that he can wiggle out of what he's said if it meets criticism.